Oyster scheme to offer a watch Timepiece to join cards and phones for Tube payment

29 January 2008 10:48 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The cashless payment scheme Oyster is to launch a new way to pay for London transport users, it is being reported.

As well as the Oyster cards, the Barclaycard-flavoured Oyster cards and a new Nokia/O2 phone trial, the scheme will extend the contactless payment to wristwatches.

The watch, which has built-in Oyster payment technology, has been trialled over the past 6 months by 500 members of Transport for London staff and is due to be rolled out later this year.

Oyster is apparently currently in discussions with several watch manufacturers, including Swatch, in order to decide who will be the official launch partner.

With the short range wireless technology used, wearers would just need to wave their watch near a contact point in order for the payment to be processed.